2017 #5 Clay Flowers and Infusions by Lucy Edmondson

2017 Topic 5: Blue and Ochre

If creating an piece to decorate your home grabs your fancy, then tonight Lucy has a wonderful idea to explore. I'll leave it to her to explain!

Hi everyone, Lucy here from Lucy's True Colours Blog. I'm delighted to be here tonight using Ellen Vargo's stamps (see here) which I know so many of us reach for time and time again for our backgrounds. Ellen is, of course, the wonderful woman who got us all obsessed with brayering! She also brought out a set of stamps with three stunning flowers which are very large and make a perfect focal point.

Way back when I did, I believe, my first post for PaperArtsy. I made Lin Brown clay flowers, mixing Fresco Paints with the clay to make custom colours. It occurred to me that Infusions, being a dry medium, would mix in well too, and that I could then paint the flowers with the Infusions after baking. I mixed my chosen colours with Fresco Metallic Glaze and I was amazed by the glorious Metallic colours and the wonderful sheen it achieved on the clay. Result!

As well as the chance to use Ellen's stamps, I was delighted with the colour scheme of the current challenge. The word 'Ochre' always makes me think of the traditional colour names we have known since childhood from our paintboxes and coloured pencils. I'm sure we will see a variety of Blues and Yellows over the two weeks but I happened to be out with a very elegant friend for coffee whilst I was thinking about what I would make and she was wearing grey blue with bright yellow and quite a bit of white so I decided that was roughly the direction I would go. I knew I wanted to incorporate the blues from both the old and the new Infusions range so I decided to use white embossing as a highlight. I had an idea to make some tiny canvases using shaving foam as a carrier for the Infusions, some in blues and some in yellows, to sit the clay flowers on. The little canvases were going to go onto the bigger canvas and they looked lovely in themselves but clashed badly with the embossed canvas so I decided less was more. But do give it a go!

The first of my flowers from Ellen's set Eclectica EEV10. They gave such a good impression on the clay, with the archival ink. 

Here's the tulip from the same set. I think this would look lovely if you stamped script into the clay.

It was quite magical painting with the Infusions Orange County mixed with Fresco Metallic Glaze, it almost created a bronze. I then did the same with Black Magic for the stems and some little highlights. Information on Infusions, including the new colours and stockists can be found in this blog post here.

Here's a close up of one of the flowers in situ on the canvas. I think I'll be making more of these. I'm thinking poppies!

Ellen's stamps gave me plenty of scope to create my white embossed background. I tried to keep in straight lines! I used Eclectica EEV02, EEV05, and EEV06
.

Don't forget the sides of your canvas!

This bit was magical too, just a tiny sprinkle of the Infusions, in this case the new Sleight Blue, and a rub of a baby wipe to activate and the lines of embossing appear. I also used the new In the Navy, with Royal Blood and Violet Storms. I found the baby wipe gave quite a bit of control over the depth of colour.

I hope you enjoyed my take on the Blue and Ochre colour challenge and also that you will get your Ellen Vargo stamps out to play! Most of all though, I hope I have given you a couple of additional ways you can use those new Infusions colours. There are some lush ones I haven't tried yet which I am very excited about and I would like to go back to the shaving foam and brayer I started to play with, using the remaining new colours, and also the clay, the Metallic Glaze, and using baby wipes over white embossing, with different colour and stamp combos!

Thank you so much for looking,

Lucy

Blog: Lucy's True Colours
Twitter: @Craftyluce

Wow Lucy, how amazing this has turned out. The canvas alone is wonderful with the Ellen Vargo stamps (how did you do that so perfectly! But the clay flowers are so different  and the infusions worked a treat on there too! What a great idea! Thanks for sharing this with us! ~ Leandra

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